


Sergio's Prerogative

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Betrayal, Cat Burglars, Coffee Shops, Comfort/Angst, Denial of Feelings, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fake Character Death, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Romantic Friendship, Roommates, Second Chances, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 03:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3513491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Prentiss disappears, Reid inherits her cat, Sergio. After she returns, Reid gives the cat back but Sergio has his own ideas about his preferred living arrangements.</p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains adult themes and should not be read by those under 14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up story for [One Cup, No Waiting](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3278249) and [Wrong Moment](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3117635). Read them first if you haven't already because this fic references those stories a lot.

Reid didn’t feel that he was very good at nurturing things. He’d utterly failed with plants, and there was the unfortunate time he tried to keep fish that had ended with an empty tank and a lot of flushed corpses. He was even supervised when around Jack or Henry despite trying his best for his friends’ children. That’s why he’d been terrified when Prentiss’s former neighbor suddenly contacted him and _demanded_ that he take Sergio in. He had zero faith that he could keep a cat alive.

But Sergio made it easy on him. After a brief and frantic investigation of his apartment upon his arrival, the cat established his spot on a windowsill facing the street and mewed at Reid as if to say ‘okay, this’ll do’. Reid didn’t know what else was required of him in this relationship, so he decided to respect the cat’s privacy and left him to himself. But as the first week stretched into two, and then three, and Sergio spent most of his time looking down from his window perch, Reid began to worry. He tried coaxing the animal away with treats and a newly purchased cat bed, but Sergio acted as if his observation of the street were his job. In time, Reid placed his meal bowl on the edge of the sill and Sergio looked up to meow his thanks. Reid sighed sadly in realization and scratched the cat’s neck idly.

“She’s not coming back,” he choked, trying to convince himself to keep breathing. But Sergio just softly purred in a way that suggested he didn’t share Reid’s view on the matter.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes Reid woke up crying. He’d wrench himself from sleep with heaving sobs and a snotty nose, and he didn’t always know what had provoked it. Some dreams he remembered - dreams of past cases, old fears, and sometimes dreams of _her_ \- but many times he didn’t and it made the devastating ache in his chest afterwards even more inexplicable. It was embarrassing even though there was no one there to witness it. 

Except now there was.

One night as he sat up in bed, sobbing and feeling a memory of frantic kisses disintegrate under the weight of his consciousness, a furry head bumped against his chin and purred. He was confused until he felt the small body under his hands trying to crawl up his chest. He took a deep breath and wiped his face. He lifted himself and Sergio from the bed, tucking the warm, vibrating thing under his arm as he walked to the kitchen.

“Okay, buddy, okay…”

He made tea, never letting go of the cat that seemed content to go limp against him. He didn’t want to be alone with his late night memories, and yet he didn’t know what to do or where to be in order to avoid them. As he held his mug in one hand and Sergio in the other, he slowly looked out into his living room to the window that he never shuttered. He moved towards it without thinking and then curled himself and the cat into the familiar spot, staring out over the passing traffic.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked quietly as the black body settled into his lap. Sergio mewed ambiguously as they stood watch together.


	3. Chapter 3

They figured it out: Sergio had his work, and Reid had his own. When one got too exhausted or too bogged down by what they were doing, the other would conveniently distract them. More often than not it was Sergio who did the distracting as his mission of sitting-and-staring seemed less labor intensive than Reid’s various projects; he provided a warm couch companion for movie watching and loudly encouraged laundry washing so that he could sit in the hamper of clean clothes and marinate in the scent of fabric softener. Sometimes he had words with Reid about grocery shopping and cleanliness whenever his dish went empty or his litter got too full, and Reid usually apologized and promised to do better. On occasion, Reid slotted himself into Sergio’s window and helped him with his work, running his fingers soothingly along the cat’s scruff and under his jaw while he watched. They respected one another’s ‘separateness’ but still kept each other from too much solitude.

One night when Reid came home soaked to skin dashing from his car to the building, Sergio broke with convention and leapt from the window, skittering across the apartment to rub himself against Reid’s legs with plaintive meows. Reid was a little taken aback by the greeting. His pants left long, damp smears across Sergio’s sides that failed to deter him.

“What’s up, buddy? You’re gonna get all wet…”

Sergio looked up and pointedly yowled.

“That’s a lotta attitude, Serge. Did I forget to fill your food bowl?”

Sergio meowed again and began butting Reid’s calves with his head.

“Alright, alright. Lemme get changed first.”

The yowling continued from the living room while Reid found dry clothes. Maybe it was just the rain - cats could get spooky about stuff like that. Reid checked the bowl, water and litter, and found them all up to the feline’s established standards, so in the end he gave the cat a shrug and told him he’d have to learn to write because they were failing to communicate adequately at that moment. Surprisingly, that shut Sergio up as he gave in with a growl and then hopped up to his window to stare into the street intensely.

“And people call me twitchy…” Reid muttered as he heated some leftovers in the microwave and allowed himself to get distracted by his newest volume of _Chemistry Today_. 

He ate and read and generally forgot himself until a crick in his neck forced him to stretch and look over at the window. Sergio was in the exact same position, back still, legs straight, and tail whisking ominously. 

“C’mon, bud, give it a rest for the night. You can’t see anything through all that rain anyway.”

He was distracted by his phone, and the bizarre conversation he had with the caller. Someone was sorry and, though he didn’t know who it was or what they’d done, he wanted to keep them talking. Desperation could lead to a lot of bad things. But the call ended as abruptly as it began and when his attempts to call back didn’t work, he decided that he’d had enough strangeness for one evening. He got up from the couch and looked to the window to find Sergio staring _at him_. Then he started yowling again.

“Sergio, quit it already.” He crossed the room and picked up the cat, which fought him for the first time since he’d arrived months earlier. “Time for bed, you weirdo.”

It took Reid a while to get settled and Sergio complained the entire time. As he turned out the light he gave the cat an ultimatum: shut up, or sleep in the living room. In the end, the animal relented and Reid fell asleep to the little body shivering against his legs.


	4. Chapter 4

She came back and he was devastated all over again. Reid could barely contain his rage at what she’d done, and how she’d done it. And all for the sake of a case. It burned in his throat every day - how used and betrayed he felt - but he never said anything to her. Instead, he lashed out randomly at others until eventually Hotch pulled he and Prentiss into his office.

“This ends now,” Hotch growled. “Whatever you two need to do in order to make peace, do it. That’s an order.”

Reid was about to object when Hotch rounded on him.

“I understand your sense of betrayal, Reid. You are entitled to it. But we have work to do here, and if you two can’t find a way through this, it’s going to force my hand. We’re a family - don’t make me break up a family.”

Reid just shut his mouth with a click and nodded. Hotch was right, but it didn’t make him feel any better. They were shooed from Hotch’s office and then he felt her hand on his arm.

“Reid-”

“I have your cat,” he preemptively stopped her.

“You… you have Sergio?”

He nodded without looking at her. “We get along an’ stuff, but he’d probably prefer being with you. I think he’s always believed that you were coming back.”

“Well… if you two have hit it off…” she said after a moment.

“No, I was just a temporary human. You are who he belongs to.” He tried not to _feel_ that statement too keenly. “When you get settled, you should come by and get him.”

“Okay, if you think that’s best.” She sounded a little reluctant. “Thank you, by the way… for taking him in. I didn’t really consider what would happen to him.”

He looked up at her then. He couldn’t help it. “It seems like he and I have that in common.”

And then he marched back to his desk without waiting for her reaction.


	5. Chapter 5

When she finally found a place, she came by his apartment to take Sergio home. The cat had what could only be described as an epileptic fit of joy at her presence, eventually collapsing at her feet in paroxysms of purring and belly rolls. Reid tried not to take it personally - his ego didn’t really need to deal with being rejected by _a cat_. He handed over a bag of Sergio’s things: food, cat bed, toys he never played with, and Prentiss repeated her thanks when she saw the abundance of stuff that only accumulates when you really try hard at something. After eight months, Reid could finally admit that he was proud to have kept Sergio alive.

“He looks happy, Reid.” Prentiss picked Sergio up and his purring almost became a physical thing.

“According to my research, cats don’t get happy. They merely get to a place where they’ll benevolently tolerate your idiosyncrasies.” Reid reached out and scratched Sergio’s head, which caused the animal to snap out a paw to hold his hand in place. “Still… I think I’ll miss him.”

Sergio blinked meaningfully and pushed his head further into Reid’s hand, purring loudly.

“Animals know good people when they find them, Reid. He likes you - look at him. Perhaps you could come by and visit him…” Prentiss’s eyebrows lifted hopefully, and Reid pulled his hand back too quickly.

“We’ll see,” he hedged, looking down to his shoes.

Sergio fell back into Prentiss’s chest and it seemed to end the awkward conversation. She made her exit and Reid stood alone in his apartment for the first time in almost eight months. He looked over at the empty windowsill in the midday sun and wondered why he always seemed to be a step behind when things left him.


	6. Chapter 6

Reid stumbled into his darkened apartment with his go bag full of dirty clothes, messenger sack full of reports and papers, and a take-out bag from the local greasy spoon. He toed the door shut with a loud slam and dumped all but the food dramatically. It had been a long, difficult case and he was glad to be home, even if home had become too quiet for his liking these days. All he wanted was a change of clothes, his double bacon cheeseburger and his DVD of _Forbidden Planet_. 

He flicked on the lights and wondered if he had any clean pajamas when he heard a loud, plaintive yowl. His head snapped to the window and he saw a drenched silhouette with green eyes peering back at him.

“Sergio?” He raced to the window and opened it, and the cat wasted no time leaping out of the rain and shaking himself all over the area rug. “What the hell…”

Sergio gave another yowl, which might have been ‘where have you been?’, and then wandered over to the living room table to sniff Reid’s take-out. After a moment Reid fished out his phone as he went to the couch and absently scratched Sergio’s soggy neck. The cat purred and rubbed his dampness into Reid’s legs as the call rang.

“Hello?”

“Sergio’s at my apartment.”

“He is? Oh, thank god…” Prentiss’s voice was a little shaky. “I can’t believe I left a window open.”

“Well, I didn’t so he’s been out on the ledge for who knows how long. Should I drive him back? It’s pretty awful out.”

“No, I’ll come over. Give me twenty minutes, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I’m sorry about this, Reid…”

“It’s fine. I’m just amazed that he made it here. It’s not as if we live close to each other.”

“I’m trying _not_ to envision my cat being hit by a car, Reid…”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, … I’ll see you when you get here.”

The call ended and when Reid looked down he could’ve sworn that the cat tried to roll his eyes at him.

“You’re one to talk, with your oh-so-smooth run away from home tactic…” Reid grumbled and then went off in search of a clean towel.

~~~

When Prentiss arrived, Sergio was curled up on Reid’s couch, ensconced in a damp towel and eating a french fry while Reid watched hokey sci-fi. The cat meowed when he saw her, stretched and then slowly wandered over to her and rubbed himself between her calves. His fur was sticking out in all directions. Prentiss laughed out loud.

“Sorry to interrupt the man-date…” She squinted at Reid’s TV. “Is that… _Forbidden Planet_?”

“Yeah. Have you ever seen it?”

“Not in years.”

Sergio sauntered back to the couch and took up his former position, staring back at Prentiss as he did. She shook her head and went to grab him.

“C’mon you. You’ve had enough adventure…”

“You can stay and watch, if you like,” Reid spoke up suddenly, still staring at the screen. “It might give the rain a chance to ease up.”

Prentiss hesitated. “Are you sure? You must be tired.”

“It’s just a movie, Prentiss. Two hours won’t render me catatonic.”

“Okay,” she huffed and gently settled into Reid’s couch as if it were made of needles.

After a few minutes, as Reid absently fed fries to Sergio, she spoke up again. “May I have a fry too?”

Reid blinked and then felt his cheeks heat as he lifted the container and placed it between them on the couch. “Sure. Sorry…”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, her cheeks rosy.

And that’s how they came to watch a movie together with a contented cat purring between them.


	7. Chapter 7

A month later, Reid came home from a case and found Sergio _inside_ his apartment. He sat by the front door and swished his tail expectantly. Reid started to wonder if ‘cat burglary’ had anything to do with actual cats. He stammered for a moment and then dropped his bags and bent towards his surprise houseguest.

“How do you manage it?”

Sergio blinked in a bored way and began to lick his paw. Typical. Reid was about to call Prentiss when a knock sounded at his door. He opened it to find the building super smiling at him amiably.

“You locked your cat out,” he began. “I was in your unit because of a plumbing problem upstairs… checking for leaks, you see… and I saw him out on the window ledge. Figured you musta forgot before you left town, huh?”

The super craned his head and spotted Sergio. 

“Oh, there he is. No worse for wear, huh, little guy?”

Sergio looked almost angelic. Reid couldn’t believe how effective the cat was at pulling off this ruse.

“Umm, yeah. Sorry about that… thanks for letting him in though.”

“No problem. I just wanted to swing by and let you know. If you ever need someone to cat sit, I can help out. He seems like a low maintenance guy.”

“Oh, sure. Thanks for the offer, Burt. I’ll be more cautious before my next trip.”

Reid put off the super and closed the door, turning back to Sergio with a critical look. “What’s your game, buddy?”

The cat mewed and then rubbed himself against Reid until he picked him up. Once curled against his chest, Sergio purred and butted his head under Reid’s chin.

“I know,” Reid sighed. “I miss you too.”

He walked into his apartment and found his phone in his pocket.

 _Guess who’s here?_ he texted to Prentiss, and she responded minutes later with _*facepalm* See you in 20_.


	8. Chapter 8

Reid began to leave his window open slightly when he went on out of state cases. It was a bit of a security risk, but he felt that being four storeys from street level and locking the window to an opening barely big enough to fit a rolled up newspaper offset it. Sergio was big but he could still manage to negotiate the gap, and Reid felt eased that the cat would have suitable shelter when he pulled his Houdini act. He didn’t show up all the time, but enough for Reid to suspect that there was purpose to his walkabouts. And it meant that he and Prentiss spent more time together than they normally would have. Whenever she showed up to collect Sergio, she often lingered, and Reid found this less and less awkward the more it happened. For Sergio’s part, he seemed oblivious to their strain, and bounced from one to the other with equal delight.

One night, after a late touchdown at the airstrip, Reid called out to Prentiss as they headed to their cars.

“Wanna lay odds about me coming home to a houseguest?”

He watched as her exhaustion lifted into a gentle, knowing smile. “If he’s there, tell him I’m done with him. I’ll throw all of his things onto the front lawn in front of the neighbors. I don’t care how tongues wag.”

“Brutal,” Reid smirked and turned towards his car again. “If he’s there, he can spend the night with me. I can bring him to your place in the morning.”

“Hey,” she called out to him across the hoods of cars. “Are we… timesharing a cat?”

“It looks that way.”

“Huh. You just never know how things will turn out, do you?”

He didn’t know what to say to that so he just shrugged. She nodded sadly and then lowered herself into her car. He watched her drive off and wondered why her question made his chest ache so much. He drove home and selfishly hoped that he wouldn’t spend the night alone, and, as if by magic, was met by a ‘welcome home’ meow when he unlocked the door.

~~~

He woke up sobbing again, but this time he didn’t understand why. She wasn’t dead - she was there every single day at the desk across from his. He’d even gotten to a point where he could have a casual conversation with her and not feel as though he was chewing on razorblades. And yet, deep in his core, he felt loss, grief, emptiness, and now he was afraid that he’d never feel anything else.

A soft solid object butted his cheek, soaking up his tears with dark fur. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh just as the purring started up and vibrated against his neck.

“Okay, buddy…” he murmured, and curled the cat into his chest as he turned to his side. Tomorrow he’d return Sergio to Prentiss, but tonight he was glad of the company.


	9. Chapter 9

“I know what this is, you know.” Prentiss took Sergio from Reid for what felt like the millionth time and watched as the cat softly batted at Reid’s hands as they slid away. “He’s worried about you.”

“Is he?” Reid smiled and gave Sergio’s neck a scrunch.

It was Month Five of pass-the-cat, and Sergio didn’t show any signs of stopping regardless of how inconvenient his traveling was to all concerned. 

“Yeah,” Prentiss continued. “You relied on each other when there was no one else, and now… I think he’s worried about you being alone again. I mean, he doesn’t worry about _me_ being alone…”

“He knows you can handle it.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew it. He felt a flush rise in his cheeks and pulled his hand back but not before Prentiss caught it in one of hers.

“Spence…” Her voice broke and he yanked his hand away ungraciously. Sergio’s ears canted backwards, irritated.

“Don’t worry about me,” he bit out, eyes locked on his shoes. “You can’t tell a cat anything, but I can tell you not to worry about it.”

“I can’t help it.” Her voice sounded soft and close and all the ways it did in his dreams.

“Sure you can. You’ve done it before.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

His anger rose in him. “It means you didn’t give a damn about me when you fucked me and then disappeared without any explanation. And this situation is so much less important than that was. Do what you want, Prentiss, but don’t pretend to check in with my feelings first.”

Prentiss took a step back.

“Spencer-”

“Stop calling me that! It’s Reid… Prentiss and Reid. We’re colleagues. We weren’t ever anything more than that. I thought we were friends once, but… anyone can make a mistake.”

“A mistake? Weren’t ever anything more?! Are you kidding?” Her voice rose and he looked at her warily. Sergio growled in her arms and she dropped him to the floor where he fled to the safety of Reid’s couch. “Listen, I’m done dancing around your feelings on this-”

“Well, that must be a familiar position for you,” he sniped and tried to ignore the sudden pain in his chest.

“Oh, wow. Would you just shut up and listen for a change?”

“To what? To you saying sorry again? That you didn’t mean to lie? That you didn’t intend to hurt people? That screwing me was a mistake?”

“It wasn’t a mistake!” Her voice was loud enough to send Sergio skittering under the sofa, and Reid watched her as she took a deep breath to settle herself again. “I’ve been playing out other people’s agendas for a long time now: my mother’s, Interpol’s, the Bureau’s, the State Department’s… I just wanted _one thing_ for myself before I disappeared. It was selfish to do it and leave you like that, but it was something I desperately wanted and I… just ran out of time. And I’m not sorry it happened.”

His hands were shaking and he felt shocks race under his skin, trying to tell him to move but he didn’t know where. Impulses were pulling him in disparate directions and he found it so overwhelming that he retreated into denial because it was something that he understood. It was just easier to believe that she’d dismissively hurt him and didn’t give a damn about it; it made his suffering feel righteous. He just wanted her to take her damned cat and go.

“You have _no idea_ what it was like for me afterwards.” It came out softer than he wanted, his voice shaking as badly as his hands.

“And you have no idea what it felt like to leave you behind.”

He looked up but she was already reaching for him, pulling him awkwardly against her as she fumbled with his lips. He went rigid under her hands, his instinctual reaction to something that had already caused him pain, but after a moment as she pulled away in embarrassment, he felt his reaction shatter against the cold realization of what had just passed between them.

“If you’d only stop fighting this so much…” she moaned as she backed up a step and tried to hide her face. “If you’d only let me try and fix it. I promised I’d try…”

The rainy night, Sergio’s freak out, and that bizarre phone call… 

Before he could stop himself, his arm wrapped around her back and brought her flush against him once again. He didn’t think, he just dipped in and caught her shock with his lips, moving frantically at first to show her it was real, and then softening to stretch it out. Her mouth opened under his, trying to say something, but he didn’t want to talk anymore. He wrapped his other arm around her waist and cinched her in close, and then he slipped into her, breathing her breath and making it last until if felt as though she was shaking down to her bones with it. He slipped against her, again and again as softly as he could, because part of him still believed that it couldn’t last and he wanted it as selfishly as she’d wanted that night in his Volkswagen. When he felt her hands in his hair, stroking in gentle pulls, he moaned because it felt real for the first time - reciprocal. He drifted from her lips and pressed himself hard against her cheek, feeling her blush heating his own.

“I need time, Emily,” he whispered but still held her close.

He felt her nod against him but she didn’t speak. At their feet, Sergio reappeared and made lazy figure eights between their legs as they held one another. His purring rose from loud to almost boastful.


	10. Chapter 10

A few days later, he asked her to come to the café where they’d first met. She supposed that they had to start this, whatever it was, somewhere and the café was as good a place as any. It hadn’t changed in seven years, and that was remarkable in itself, and as she scanned the crowd for his face, she smiled to find him already standing in line and reading a book. She snuck up behind him, ruffling the feathers of the people in line at his back, and peered over his shoulder.

“Whatcha reading?”

He startled and might have actually yelped. She had to stifle her laughter; Nervous Spencer was still nervous, it would seem.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked without much heat.

“Sorry.”

“For what? Compromising my bladder control? Too late for that.” He gave her a withering glance that she found inexplicably attractive and then he pointed to the patio out front. “Go get us a table. I’ll get our drinks. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“So cranky.” She shrugged nonchalantly and wandered away. “You scald a guy _one time_ and you never live it down.”

She found a table in the dappled shade of an elm tree and settled into it with a contented sigh. Summer was almost here and D.C. could be quite pleasant in summer. She remembered how she worried about fitting into this city seven years earlier as she waiting impatiently for her much needed coffee. Her gaze moved to the cash inside. Reid had finally made it to the head of the line and he was chatting with the barista - this time, it was a woman. She leaned into the counter as she talked to him and he smiled in a friendly way as he paid. Maybe he came here often and she knew him, maybe she didn’t, but that was how he affected people. He’d grown used to it over the years, learned to use it, but Prentiss still thought that he never expected it. It was part of why he was so endearing and unspeakably frustrating at the same time. He still didn’t think as much of himself as he should. 

She watched him look for her and then walk over to the table with their drinks. She tried not to stare but became aware of how much he’d changed over time. He was sturdier, less apt to pretend he was invisible, and his face had knowledge etched into it that wasn’t there when they first met. But his eyes were still extraordinary - full and expressive - and they still looked on the world, and increasingly, on _her_ , with interest. She didn’t see the soft wrinkles or the deep smudges under them, just the eager fascination of the doctoral candidate who’d been excited to talk about Voltaire with a total stranger.

“What?” he paused as he handed her a coffee and sat down.

“Nothing. I was remembering the first time we met.”

“You scared the crap out of me,” he smiled. “Both then and now. I might never be able to come back to this place, what with the psychological scarring.”

“You poor, delicate flower.” She slurped her coffee mischievously and then thought about a question he’d never really answered to her satisfaction. “Were you going to call me? You know, after that day here…”

“Yes,” he said after a long moment. “I didn’t feel confident about it, but Morgan had me mostly convinced to try by the time you showed up in the bullpen.”

“Oh.” She was a little breathless suddenly. “Too bad that never happened. You made a lasting impression on me.”

“I guess I can see that now. In hindsight.”

“But you didn’t see it then.”

“You were too beautiful, and I was very naïve. It didn’t add up for me at the time.”

Did he just call her ‘beautiful’, like it was a given? Like it was gravity or something?

“Well,” she cleared her throat. “I guess that’s the beauty of making a good first impression: it will always be my starting point with you, no matter what else happens.”

Neither spoke for a while, just sitting in the late spring sunshine and soaking it in.

“May I ask you something?” he murmured.

“Sure.”

“That night we were together. Afterwards… you cried.”

His throat worked slowly but he couldn’t seem it get anymore out, so she decided to save him the effort. She knew what he was asking, after all.

“It was because I’d waited so long for that.” She reached across the table for his hand and settled for tracing the edge of his finger against his mug. “I’d waited too long. I… I didn’t think that I’d survive the Doyle thing. I really thought I’d never see you again. That was all we’d ever have and, I guess, it kinda broke me a little.”

His stare was so wide and blank that she wondered if he’d actually heard her. Then he looked away, off into the street, as he tried swallowing a few more times. After some hard moments where she stared at him as he pointedly _did not_ stare at her, she felt his fingers curl over the tip of hers, both warmed by his coffee. He didn’t move for a long time, and she wondered if he would even speak again, but eventually he pulled her hand into his and rubbed his thumb over her. He looked down when he got to a particularly ragged fingernail. She tried to pull back, but he held her still.

“Still doing that thing with your nails, huh? You know, there are things that will help with that: acrid nail polish, hypnosis, reactive conditioning techniques…”

“Or, you know, I could stop obsessing over things I have no hope of changing.” She laughed, trying to make it sarcastic, but by the look he gave her, she realized she’d failed.

He collected all of her fingers together and covered them, and their worried nails, with his palm. And then he looked up at her with those eyes that still seemed impossibly big, even after all these years.

“You still have a chance to change some things.”

She felt herself flush and didn’t even bother to hide it. Her mouth dropped open, a thanks was on the tip of her tongue, but it somehow didn’t feel right. Instead she just curled her fingers inside his and focused entirely on that connection. Traffic passed on the avenue and a warm breeze rustled through the new elm leaves and the sun tracked slowly across the sky as they held onto each other and elected not to talk. When she realized that her coffee had gone cold and that the day would have to end _somehow_ , she decided conversation was required.

“I still owe you lunch, you know.”

The corners of his eyes wrinkled as he smiled. “You owe me more than lunch. But it’s a good place to start.”

~~~~

Reid turned the corner of his block as the sun started to set behind the tall silhouettes of apartment buildings. It was a beautiful day and after his coffee with Prentiss - no, _Emily_ \- he’d felt in the mood to walk home. He was a hundred yards from his front stoop, fishing out his keys, when he looked up and spotted Sergio on the fourth floor window ledge. He hadn’t left the window open because they weren’t out of town, and Sergio never showed up when they were in D.C. for work.

“Hey,” he called out and belatedly thought he might look ridiculous trying to talk to a cat. “What’s this about now?”

Sergio looked down from his perch and meowed cordially, his tail swishing gently from side to side. Reid shook his head and made a show of stomping up the front stairs to let himself in.

“You know, you really gotta decide where you live, buddy. This is getting ridiculous.”

Sergio turned his head back towards the late day sun and stretched. He ignored Reid’s display and appeared completely uninterested in his question. Or maybe he’d just already made his choice.


	11. Chapter 11

In the dimness of the room, it was difficult to figure out what things were. There was a large lump under the covers, and a smaller, darker lump further down. Occasionally, the darker lump made its views known, but it never received a response. In time, it gave up on conversation and began pawing at the edge of the larger lump. The batting became more rhythmic and enthusiastic until finally, the larger lump started shifting and sighed.

“Sergio, quit it,” the lump said in two different voices at exactly the same time. And then the voices chuckled sleepily and the lump seemed to contract in on itself as it moved under the sheets.

Sergio sat up, interested in the lump’s progress, but when it settled down once again and lay still, he curled himself into a tight ball at its feet with a resigned mew. The room fell still once again with only the random twitching of Sergio’s tail against the bedspread breaking the silence.


End file.
